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Expert witnesses testifying during Tuesday’s House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Power hearing agreed that the United States has plentiful supplies of natural gas, underscoring the ability and need to expand domestic use and move forward with exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Here’s what they had to say:

Daniel Yergin, IHS:“While markets and economics will eventually determine the realistic scale of U.S. exports, one also has to take into account wider considerations in assessing policy regarding future LNG exports. For decades, the United States has made the free flow of energy supplies one of the cornerstones of foreign policy. It is a principle we have urged on many other nations. How can the United States, on one hand, say to a close ally like Japan, suffering energy shortages from Fukushima, please reduce your oil imports from Iran, and yet turn around and, on the other, say new natural gas exports to Japan are prohibited?”

Adam Sieminski, Energy Information Administration (EIA):“Cumulative production of dry natural gas from 2011 through 2035 in the AEO2013 Reference case is about 8 percent higher than in AEO2012, primarily reflecting continued increases in shale gas production that result from the dual application of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.”

Mary Hutzler, Institute for Energy Research and former energy analyst at EIA :“The outlook for natural gas production in the United States has dramatically changed over the last decade. Just a few years ago, U.S. manufacturing facilities were moving abroad to pursue more affordable gas. At the time, the U.S. had relatively high natural gas prices. Now … energy companies are considering building liquefied natural gas terminals to export natural gas and new manufacturing plants are springing up around the country. The boom in natural gas production has completely changed the natural gas landscape and has greatly lowered natural gas prices for consumers and industrial users.”

U.S. oil production grew more in 2012 than in any year in the history of the domestic industry, which began in 1859, and is set to surge even more in 2013. Daily crude output averaged 6.4 million barrels a day last year, up a record 779,000 barrels a day from 2011 and hitting a 15-year high, according to the American Petroleum Institute (API), a trade group. It is the biggest annual jump in production since Edwin Drake drilled the first commercial oil well in Titusville, Pa., two years before the Civil War began (see chart above).

The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts 2013 will be an even bigger year, with average daily production expected to jump by 900,000 barrels a day. The surge comes thanks to a relatively recent combination of technologies—horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves pumping water, chemicals and sand at high pressures to break apart underground rock formations.

Together, they have unlocked deposits of oil and gas trapped in formations previously thought to be unreachable.

That has meant a resurgence of activity in well-established oil regions, such as West Texas’s Permian basin, as well as huge expansions in areas that had been lightly tapped in the past, such as North Dakota’s Bakken shale region. The Bakken has gone from producing just 125,000 barrels of oil a day five years ago to nearly 750,000 barrels a day today.

The benefits of the surge in domestic energy production include improving employment in some regions and a rebound in U.S.-based manufacturing.

MP: Actually, the API’s estimate of a 779,000 barrel per day (bpd) increase in domestic oil last year is pretty conservative compared to year-end comparisons of EIA data for weekly US oil production. Compared to oil output at the end of 2011 (5.846 million bpd), US oil production increased by 1.139 million bpd last year to almost 7 million bpd during the last week of December 2012. Alternatively, using the EIA’s four-week production averages show an increase of 1.063 million bpd from December of 2011 to December 2012. The reason that the yearend comparison shows a much higher annual increase in US oil production (about 1 million bpd vs. 779,000 bpd) is that domestic oil production accelerated during the second of last year – crude oil output increased 14.6% during the second half of 2012 compared to the 4.2% increase during the first six months.

The record increase in oil output last year reminds us the US oil and gas industry continues to be at the forefront of the otherwise sub-par economic recovery, and without that sector’s strong growth in output and jobs, the economy’s sub-par performance would be even more lackluster. The 1 million bpd increase in domestic oil production last year has delivered a powerful energy-based economic stimulus to the economy, creating thousands of new direct, shovel-ready jobs in oil and gas activities, and igniting many spinoff business and indirect jobs throughout the oil and gas supply chain like the “oil-by-rail shipping boom.” The future of the US economy over the next few years looks a lot brighter because of America’s surging domestic energy production.

Crude oil production, especially from tight oil plays, rises sharply over the next decade. Domestic oil production will rise to 7.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2019, up from less than 6 million bpd in 2011.

Motor gasoline consumption will be less than previously estimated. Compared with the last AEO, the AEO2013 shows lower gasoline use, reflecting the introduction of more stringent corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards. Growth in diesel fuel consumption will be moderated by the increased use of natural gas in heavy-duty vehicles.

The United States becomes a net exporter of natural gas earlier than estimated a year ago. Because quickly rising natural gas production outpaces domestic consumption, the United States will become a net exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in 2016 and a net exporter of total natural gas (including via pipelines) in 2020.

Renewable fuel use grows at a much faster rate than fossil fuel use. The share of electricity generation from renewables grows to 16 percent in 2040 from 13 percent in 2011.

Net imports of energy decline. The decline reflects increased domestic production of both petroleum and natural gas, increased use of biofuels, and lower demand resulting from the adoption of new vehicle fuel efficiency standards and rising energy prices. The net import share of total U.S. energy consumption falls to 9 percent in 2040 from 19 percent in 2011.

The AEO2013 Reference case focuses on the drivers that shape U.S. energy markets under the assumption that current laws and regulations remain generally unchanged throughout the projection period. The complete AEO2013, to be released in early 2013, will include many alternative cases in recognition of the uncertainty inherent in making projections about energy markets, which in part arises from assumptions about policies and other market drivers such as trends in prices and economic growth.

Key updates made for the AEO2013 Reference case include the following:

Extension of the projection period through 2040, an additional 5 years beyond AEO2012.

A revised outlook for industrial production to reflect the impacts of increased shale gas production and lower natural gas prices, which result in faster growth for industrial production and energy consumption. The industries affected include, in particular, bulk chemicals and primary metals.

Adoption of final model year 2017 to 2025 greenhouse gas emissions and CAFE standards for light-duty vehicles (LDVs), which increases the projected combined fuel economy of new LDVs to 47.3 mpg in 2025.

Updated modeling of LNG export potential.

Updated power generation unit costs that capture recent cost declines for some renewable technologies, which tend to lead to greater use of renewable generation, particularly solar technologies.

CAMAC Energy Inc. has finished completion operations on the Oyo-8 well, located offshore Nigeria, and is now ready to start oil production. Oyo-8 is hooked up to the Bumi Armada-owned FPSO Armada Perdana. However, CAMAC has been informed by Bumi that the FPSO is not ready to receive oil production from the well due to […]

UK-based offshore drilling contractor Ensco has from oil company BP received a notice of early termination for ENSCO DS-4, a drilling rig operating in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. The estimated effective date of the contract termination is July 2015 based on the projected completion of the customer’s current well program. Under the terms of […]

Chevron Corporation has confirmed today that George L. Kirkland, vice chairman and executive vice president, Upstream, will retire from the company, effective June 15. He will be succeeded by James W. (Jay) Johnson, as executive vice president, Upstream, effective June 16. “George’s business acumen and deep operational knowledge of our industry have helped c […]

Italian oil and gas company Eni, following its participation in the competitive International Bid Round launched by the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, signed two Production Sharing Contracts (PSC) for offshore blocks MD-02 and MD-04. The contracts were signed in Nay Pyi Taw, in the presence of the country’s Energy Minister. The Joint Venture […]

Azonto Petroleum has said that its board is going through a review of “a range of strategic options for the Company to preserve shareholder value and reduce operating costs.” In a statement issued today, the oil & gas company focused on West Africa, said that it is contemplating a sale of its assets and/or a sale […]

Maersk Oil has informed that production has started from the new unmanned platform Tyra Southeast-B, located in the Danish North Sea. According to Maersk, the platform is expected to add reserves of 50 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) over the next 30 years to Danish production. “The Tyra Southeast extension is a great example […]

MacGregor has appointed Høye G. Høyesen (49) as Vice President, Offshore Mooring and Loading Division starting as of April 1, 2015. MacGregor reorganised into seven operative divisions in the beginning of 2015 to improve customer focus. Offshore Mooring and Loading Division drives the development of Systems and Equipment for Offshore Floating Units. Høyesen […]

Wood Group has been awarded a five year, multi-million contract by Total, which includes the option for two, one year extensions. Under the contract Wood Group PSN (WGPSN) will deliver engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning services to four offshore assets and two onshore facilities in the UK continental shelf (UKCS). The contract, effectiv […]

VAALCO Energy, Inc. has announced that the post-salt Kindele-1 well, its first exploration well on Block 5 offshore Angola, was drilled to a total vertical depth of approximately 1,829 meters. VAALCO started drilling Kindele-1 well on March 2, 2015 with Celtic Sea semi-submersible drilling rig. According to the company, the objective reservoir, the Mucanzo […]

MacArtney Group will launch the new NEXUS MK VII multiplexer at the Ocean Business exhibition. Also MacArtney will display other developments, such as the LUXUS wide angle LED, and stand visitors... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

After reorganization into seven operative divisions in the beginning of 2015, MacGregor has appointed Høye G. Høyesen (49) as Vice President, Offshore Mooring and Loading Division starting 1st of... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

On behalf of the French Defence Procurement Agency (DGA) in France and UK MOD’s Defence Equipment & Support organisation, OCCAR has awarded the Maritime Mine Counter Measures (MMCM) contract to... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

BW Offshore, a provider of floating production services to the oil and gas industry, has received a notice of termination for the FPSO BW Athena contract from Ithaca Energy. Namely, BW Offshore and... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Cameron announced that Justin Rounce has assumed the newly created position of Vice President, Marketing and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), effective March 23, 2015. In his new role Rounce is... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Subsea 7 has declared their option to extend the contract for the construction vessel (CSV) “Normand Seven” with 1 year from September 2015. This is the first of a total of five yearly... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Mariners are advised that over the Easter weekend (4th-5th April 2015) the vessel Stril Explorer is due to arrive at the Gwynt y Môr windfarm to remove the 3 FLIDAR moorings on the seabed. The 76.4... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Baker Consultants Marine Limited has been appointed by GeoSea to provide underwater noise and marine mammal monitoring and mitigation during the construction phase of the Gode Wind 1 and 2 offshore... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

The ship Chioggia and the Operational Divers Group (GOS) from the Comsubin performed the mine clearing operations in the Mediterranean Sea. The GOS, with a sophisticated equipment on board, plumbed... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Lancashire based EDS is marking the completion of a £10 million contract for cable termination work at the world’s second largest operating offshore wind farm, with an exemplary health and safety... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Statoil’s active leases in the Gulf of Mexico

Once you've landed a job interview, you have one shot to wow the hiring manager. To do this, there are a few things you should avoid at all costs. In a recent LinkedIn post, recruiting manager John Kirschner shared the 10 "nevers" of interviews. Here are four of our favorites: 1. Never show up without good questions. "Interviewing is lik […]

McDonald's is losing a crucial set of customers: Kids. For decades, McDonald's wooed young children to the Golden Arches with promises of Happy Meals, colorful plastic play places and costumed burger mascots. It was a tactic that helped the Big Mac chain snag lifetime customers at a young age. But kids aren't eating as much fast food as they […]

A new app called Teleport is trying to tell startup people the best places across the world for them to set up shop. The problem solved by Teleport is simple, says co-founder and CEO Sten Tamkivi, who was previously an early executive hire at Skype and most recently an entreprenuer in residence at prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horo […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Monday said he would ask the US Congress for $1.3 billion per year in military aid for Egypt and said he would lift holds on aircraft, missiles and tanks for Cairo in place since October 2013, the White House said in a statement. Obama also said that the United States would discontinue starting in fiscal 2018 […]

For humans, reaching the age of 100 is a rare milestone. For some animals, however, it's hardly uncommon. Not all plants and animals age the way we do, and some are built for much longer lifespans than ours. Of the 10 animals that live the longest, all of them live well past 100, according to a recent post in Discovery News. At the top of the list, the […]

After filing its S1 in early March, Etsy just announced that it's expecting to launch its IPO roadshow tomorrow. It will offer 16.67 million shares, with an initial offering price of between $14 and $16 per share. That puts its valuation in the $1.5 - $1.8 billion range (based on its total of 110,962,515 total of common stock oustanding after the IPO). […]

The next time you feel fat, don't stare at your scale wondering what went wrong. Instead, take a personality test. Because according to a new Swiss study cited by New York Magazine, your eating habits are unknowingly guided by your personality traits. Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology gathered self-reported personality, eating, […]

The number of US companies going public has really dropped off lately. "After a record year in 2014, the IPO market slowed dramatically in the first quarter of 2015," Renaissance Capital analysts said. The first quarter of 2015, which ended Tuesday, was the slowest quarter for IPOs since the first quarter of 2013. While stock prices have been near […]

For years and years you've been warned: First impressions are lasting. "I wish I could take some of the pressure off people when it comes to making first impressions, but the reality is that they are really important, mostly because they are so difficult to change and because they're made remarkably quickly — usually within seconds, before you […]

If you love Trannies, here's a message for you this quarter... First let's get this out of the way... What an utter farce today was with markets breaking everywhere to stick save VIX ETFs rampant manipulation of the indices... After open, @NASDAQ stopped quoting in A-Z for between 6-8 minutes. Here is in $AAPL: between 09:31-09:37 ET pic.twitter.co […]

1987 Or 2015? "They are not real buyers and sellers... these are computers that drive the markets down extremely fast..." "A crash is coming..." "A correction will prompt rate cuts which will ensure The Bull Market is not over..." * * * It's never different this time... The Friday night before Black Monday 1987... […]

Two months ago, when looking at the most recent physical gold withdrawal numbers reported by the Fed, we observed something peculiar: between the publicly reported surprise redemption by the Netherlands (122 tons) and the just as surprise redemption by the Bundesbank (85 tons), at least 207 tons of gold should have vacated the NY Fed's gold vault. Inste […]

Stranger things have happened... Remember the stop-on-a-dime 666 lows of the S&P... Well it's been 7.5 years again... and we have extended an almost-perfect Fibonnaci 61.8% off the last high-to-low swing... Charts: Bloomberg h/t Brad Wishak

With Decisive Storm airstrikes showing no signs of abating, and with some reports suggesting that as many as 40 people were killed when bombs struck a refugee camp near Haradh, many suspect the violence in Yemen is set to escalate meaningfully in the days and weeks ahead with Saudi Arabia preparing to launch a ground invasion in the expanding effort to debil […]

Days after Zero Hedge broke the news that CNBC had just suffered its worst ever ratings year in 2014... ... we weren't at all surprised to read in the WSJ that "CNBC will no longer rely on TV ratings specialist Nielsen to measure its daytime audience, beginning later this year. Instead, it has retained marketing and research firm Cogent Reports f […]

......Submitted and posted with permission by Gary Christenson - The Deviant Investor (Independently Written) Which silver? Paper silver or real silver? Silver prices are largely set on the COMEX futures – paper silver. A company can post the margin and sell short thousands of contracts with no actual metal available thereby creating artificial supply. […]

The Long US Dollar, Short US Treasuries trades were the 'most crowded' earlier this year and while both have derisked modestly from record highs, this week saw the net speculative position in EURUSD futures surge more negative and has never been shorter. Along similar 'strong dollar' lines, as Bloomberg reports, net long positions in Gold […]

Frequent readers are aware that the one US housing market which we follow the closest because it is perhaps the best proxy for global liquidity but even more importantly, Chinese excess liquidity (and capital outflows) is that of San Francisco - a mecca for not only the beneficiaries of the second tech bubble, but the favorite spot to park cash for thousands […]

It is important to keep track of the war on terror and its damages. A big war creates immense antipathy among those subject to its destruction ... Trade suffers; blowback occurs. And for the US, such a war can be economically draining far beyond what is now being reported. This is not really taken into account in the economic analyses purveyed across the air […]

A big mainstream media meme is that when economic conditions worsen, people respond by seeking out Hitler-esque leaders who will express the frustration of the "people" via genocide, incipient warfare and the creation of a police state. Regardless of whether this has been true in the past, we have long predicted that the Internet would change the w […]

Discrimination has become a "dirty word." It has come to carry the "politically incorrect" connotation of prejudice, hatefulness, racism, and cruel intolerance towards others in society. There is only one problem: Which one of us does not discriminate? Indeed, everything we do reflects discriminating choices and decisions. The issue of di […]

Predictably, the death of Lee Kuan Yew has generated many positive comments in the mainstream media about his "leadership" of Singapore. The main thrust of the comments has to do with his ability to run an authoritarian regime that produced a kind of capitalist prosperity. This is an all-too-familiar meme, one often voiced by Western leaders. The i […]

Leaders in high places around the world are making it clear that the drug war is in a sense "over" – and all that is left to do is wind it down. Of course, if you ask the millions who have suffered from the drug war and their families, the "war" is an all-too-literal presence. For them, there is no winding down, or not yet. But Kofi Anan […]